Search

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of a date (mentally) and wonder where my life is going. I glance around from left to right, silently scolding myself for getting into another ludicrous situation with yet another person I have absolutely zero interest in. I dream for a first date where I will yawn less than ten times, not think about what color I should paint my nails or wonder how I am going to get home without an awkward, ass out hug goodbye. I hate touching strange men, or any stranger for that matter, so it’s always an awful predicament for me. I’m really good at a goodbye wave, but through years of dating I have learned that to be totally unacceptable.

On Thursday I accepted a date with a man we will call Chopstix. My friends got his number a few months ago at a brunch downtown where he was their server. He volunteers for some organization that they wanted to be involved in. This story should end right here, on the word server, but it doesn’t. Oh boy it doesn’t.

In April, we were targeting a certain demographic (hipster) for an opening party at work, so I ended up emailing Chopstix and asking him for his mailing address for the event. My friends thought he was great and hipster so we needed him. He kindly obliged, I sent the invite, but Chopstix didn’t RSVP or attend. I didn’t even think about it until two weeks later when my caller id at work showed that Chopstix was on the line. Calling to apologize for a “mail mix up”, Chopstix claimed that he didn’t get the invite until after the party. Yada yada, okay, bye.

He sent another email mentioning that if I’d ever like to grab a drink to let him know. And I look up to Bethenny Frankel, who comes from a place of yes, so I agreed to the drink. Plus, if I don’t keep torturing myself on useless first dates, I will never appreciate a good one when it comes strolling along. It’s like I have a blind date punch card, where I have to get to ten dates before God throws me a freaking freebie.

So on Thursday, K and I went out to Bangers & Lace an hour before Chopstix was supposed to show up and got totally ripped. Like ripasaurus rex, head on the table, drunk. I’m talking shots of Chartreuse on a one hot dog stomach at 6 p.m. I mean, this poor boy had no chance.

Choppers shows up at 7:02 p.m. (two points for being timely) and I kindly clocked about twenty minutes about caring about the conversation. Here are some of the top highlights of those golden twenty minutes:

– He has a full tattoo sleeve (not a bad thing to me) of three large colorful fish (definitely a bad thing). The reasoning for this humongous tat? He has an affinity for Asian culture.

Sub bullet: I judge people for dumb tattoos. Asian culture? Fish? What does that even mean?

Sub bullet: He’s not Asian. He’s big and white and goofy.

– He has a Siamese cat named Chopsticks.

Sub bullet: Again with the Asian culture.

Sub bullet: Man with a cat.

– In a eight hour work day, he mentioned that he spends at least two hours a day watching videos on YouTube.

Sub bullet: Want to know what I do at work? I work. And unless you work for YouTube, you will be judged for spending that much time during your workday on the site.

– He told me that he is very close with his family. Owkay owkay, that sounds owkay. Then he told me he is so close with his father that when they greet each other they kiss on the lips. It’s a French thing, he mentioned. Then he followed up with the fact that he’s not French.

Sub bullet: I don’t kiss my dad on the lips. And if it’s a French thing, Chopsy, then you need to be French to practice.

After slowly realizing that I needed to escape, K and her semi-boyfriend (he had showed up by that point) wanted to go get dinner. I didn’t want to be left alone with Mr. Asian Chopstix so we all agreed to go together. K and the C of Chosh lasted about five minutes at the restaurant before Chopstix and I were left alone (I wasn’t the only one on a Chartreuse diet that night). I was forced to a sit down meal and it could have turned out fine if it wasn’t a totally one sided conversation. All Chopstix wanted to do was talk about himself. It was like I was a big old mirror, reflecting his stellar image for him to smile at and tell meaningless stories to. He probably didn’t care what I had to say because I am not Asian… or French.

I don’t think I spoke more than five sentences at the table, which for me, is a huge feat. And there’s nothing like being terribly bored when you’ve hit the bottle too hard. It got so awkward that I had him pack up our actual dinners into to go boxes before we could eat them. Dinner for two, to go for one. Cya Chopstix.

I fled for the cab line outside, saying thank you and goodnight, giving him the ass out hug and hoping that he wasn’t going to murder me for being so terrible and uninterested. But instead of getting the point, he asked me if I wanted to hang out on Friday. As in the next day. As in on the weekend. Let me lay something on the line – going on a date on the weekend isn’t appropriate until date three. Shouldn’t even be an option in life.

You have to love the guy for trying though. When I told him no, he told me that he was busy Saturday night. So it was Friday or bust. Like the world was going to end on Sunday.

Well it’s Sunday and I am still here. Chopstix is not. He’s at home watching YouTube and petting his cat.